Apparatus for separating vegetable articles from clods and other debris are known. Generally, these apparatus are used in combination with the conveyors and elevators of a harvesting machine for the particular article.
A typical device is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,473,659. The apparatus is comprised of a pair of counter-rotating rollers covered with a soft rubber material. Vegetable articles, such as tomatoes, fall from a conveyor onto the rollers. The rollers are inclined and spaced allowing the tomatoes to move from one end to the other while clods of dirt fall between the rollers. The tomatoes then fall onto another conveyor. Brush elements contact the underside of the rollers to continually sweep them clean.
Other models of similar apparatus show roller variations, such as brushes in place of rollers or alternate rollers having flights which keep the vegetable articles raised from the core of the roller but allow rocks and dirt clods to fall through.
Eliminating apparatus which use rollers and brushes, however, are prone to plugging, especially in mud or clay-type soils. Plugging causes breakage and costly down-time. This is sufficiently troublesome that many harvesters do not have any type of eliminating apparatus. Rather, three or four field workers stand along the sides of a picking table-type conveyor, which otherwise would be an eliminating apparatus. The field workers manually separate the vegetable articles from the trash.